Stalling For Time
by Aron
Summary: Work can be boring... especially if you're pushing goods on your own - at a festival! - and business is slow on the day. So when a friend comes along and offers to brighten up the mood, how can you say no? Kazunari/Kotone, Khoury/Lyra oneshot.


**Okay... here's my first ever one-shot, so bear with me on this one. I saw the Johto Festa episode of the anime in Japan, and I sorta fell in love with the idea of these two. I'm not a hundred percent sure on the name, so for convenience's sake I'm dubbing this one FestaShipping! So yeah, enjoy!**

* * *

"Come _on_!" Kotone hissed, grabbing at his arm and tugging on it. "Come… on…!" she whined, planting her feet firmly in the ground between two stacks of boxes that were lying on the ground next to her.

"No, alright?!" shouted Kazunari, his curly green hair bobbing about as he tried to pull himself out of his friend's grip.

"Fine, be a stick in the mud," she said coolly. She lightly pushed him away as she let go, and he tripped over in a heap as he crashed onto the ground, bowls falling from the bench to his left with a loud clang.

"What was _that_ for?!" Kazunari yelled angrily, his hands grabbing at the bench as he pulled himself up.

They were standing inside the stall that he and his father had set up for the Johto Festa, and – unfortunately for him – Kotone's shove had just knocked over half the ingredients for his latest batch of Pokémon food. Not that they would have done much good, though; business was slow today, with hardly anyone bothering to simply stop and _look_ at the food he'd toiled so hard to make.

He sighed as he snatched up a broom from the corner of the stall, and he tossed it at Kotone as he picked up the upturned bowls on the ground and started emptying them into a waste bin.

"If you want to do something, you can help me clean this mess you made," he said, a little gratingly, as he pulled out a dustpan and slid it over to her.

"_I made_?!" she repeated, indignant. "You—!" she raised the broom handle and brought it down on his head with a sharp _thwack_, "were the one who tripped over your own feet, you klutz!"

"Ow! Alright, alright! I'm sorry, it's my fault!" he cried out, shielding himself with his hands in case she tried to assault him again with the broom, or any other household utensils that were lying within arm's reach of her. "But _could_ you help? _Please_?! My dad's gonna kill me if he finds all this—" he hastily waved a hand at the multicoloured splatters of powders and pellets underfoot, "when he comes back from his flyer run."

"It's amazing what you can do with a little bit of manners," Kotone giggled, giving him a playful prod in the arm with the tip of the broom. Scowling, the bespectacled boy grabbed the broom back and began moving the wasted ingredients into piles, leaving her to scoop them up with the dustpan and put it in the bin.

As they repeated the same motions over and over, Kotone swung her head to the invisible rhythm of their work, occasionally waving her arms about at the elbows and humming a tune. Kazunari just rolled his eyes. How she could get enjoyment out of such a menial task was beyond him; what was even further beyond him was how good she was at getting others to follow her example.

"Come on, Kaz!" she said merrily, beaming as she gave a little knee-kick. "Put some swing in that sweeper!"

"I'm really not the sweeper-swinging type, in case you hadn't noticed," he grinned, despite her infectious bopping. "And don't call me Kaz! You know it annoys me," he added in a mock-hurt tone, jabbing her in the stomach with the broom handle and poking his tongue out at her.

"Well if you're not gonna join me and my _fabulous_ dancing…" she sighed, and she placed a finger on the bridge of his glasses as if daring him to call her up on the comment. "You might as well make some noise! Like this!" she shouted gleefully, smacking her hands on the bench-top in sync to the swinging of her hips. Her hands slapped against the wood faster and faster, moving her body even quicker to keep the pace, occasionally striking a bowl with an outstretched finger for a different sound.

Kazunari shook his head at her antics, but his foot was tapping against the ground as he got caught up in the beat. Before he knew it, he was tapping his broom-handle against the rubbish bin at the same time Kotone was hitting the bowl, and his fingers were rattling over the containers of Pokémon food like sticks across a drum kit.

"Yeah, that's the way!" she cheered, grabbing a pair of MooMoo Milk jars and shaking them about like maracas. "Just because you're stuck here at the shop doesn't mean you can't have fun!" she added with a wink.

"You're right! This isn't half bad!" he chuckled. He could feel the energy with every thud of his fingers, every jolt running up his arms, every tap of his foot. It was… invigorating. Normally, he was pretty accident-prone, but this didn't just seem like a way to keep himself from breaking something; to him, it was a cool way to pass time, particularly with Kotone keeping him entertained.

He stole a glance at her as she twirled around, and he smiled inwardly; only Kotone could turn something as boring as this into something fun. He wondered where she got her seemingly boundless energy it came from, he didn't have time to think about it, because all of a sudden she'd stopped dancing and was waving one of her milk jars in front of his face, shouting something about the broom.

"Huh—wha—?" he stammered, slowly coming out of his trance and stopping his percussion work.

"Next time you're drumming along," she said with a shake of her head, "make sure you don't do it on something breakable." She pointed at the tip of the broom, just as Kazunari felt something cold trickling onto his hand.

"Ack!" he shouted, whipping his head around. "Oh no…!" It turned out that, in the excitement of his and Kotone's little jam session, he'd hit one of the MooMoo jars a little too hard, and now milk was spilling everywhere. "No, no no no no no…!"

"Honestly, Kaz, you're such a klutz sometimes…" Kotone sighed, shrugging her hands in defeat as her friend scrambled about, hand-towels and arms flying about as he desperately tried to clean up another mess.

After a few minutes, the floor and utensils were all milk-free, and Kazunari had even whipped out a new tablecloth to put underneath the goods that were still in one piece. She had to admit, even when he was a bumbling idiot, he was efficient at it. Maybe he just got so much practice at having to clean up the little accidents he caused in the past, that it was second nature to him now.

"Did I miss anything, Kotone?" he asked, waving a hand at the cramped space. Kotone craned her neck past his back, which was blocking her view; it looked clean enough. Not a patch of white anywhere it wasn't supposed to be. He turned around, waiting for her to say if she caught a stray spill that he'd overlooked.

"Yeah, it's cl—" she started to say, but she broke off when she saw his face. Or, rather, the white stripe running along the bridge of his nose. Somehow, sometime during his cleaning frenzy, he'd managed to slap his nose into some of the spilt milk… he really was hopeless.

"Kotone?" Kazunari muttered, waving a hand in front of her face. "Anyone home in there?"

"You've got a—" she grabbed the small towel in his hand, "your nose—it's right—"

"Oh—? I'll get it—" he said, batting her hand away.

Kotone snatched it back. "No, you'll end up jabbing yourself in the eye, knowing your co-ordination skills—"

"Look, I can get it—!"

"Let me—!"

"Kotone!" he shouted, tearing the towel away from her grasp.

"Kazunari!" she hissed. She lunged, her hand latching onto Kazunari's hand instead of the towel. She took a sharp breath, freezing in place, and she could see him doing the same thing, his eyes fixated on her hand. No, it was innocent! He was being a pain in the neck! She was just trying to clean up his mess… like always… "Look, see—?" she quickly ran the towel across his nose and wiped away the milk.

"All better now!" she giggled, in a high-pitched voice, letting go right away and turning around, just as she felt her cheeks grow hot. This wasn't right. Sure, he had this helpless-and-hopeless look about him which was kind of cute – cute in the same way a Poochyena would scratch at the fence when it heard its owner coming up the driveway – but, as clichéd as it sounded, they were just friends… weren't they?

"Uh… thanks for that, Kotone… it'd be a bit dumb to try and sell this stuff with a big wad of it on my face—!" Kazunari joked, gazing at the back of her head, waiting for a reply.

He didn't get one, so he hurried over to the other side of the stall and busied himself with some crates hidden underneath the bench, thinking about what had just happened. She must have just mistimed the snatch, that's all. That's—well, was that really all? Maybe she—no, there was no way she'd do that with any kind of ulterior motive. Right? She was way out of his league—wait, there's not even a possibility, so why look at it that way?! He was more like a brother than anything else… wasn't he?

"Just put it out of mind, Kotone," she whispered to herself, fanning her face with her hand to get rid of any trace of a blush. She turned around with her arms folded and a grin plastered on her face, and it widened when she saw Kazunari foraging on the ground. "Even if he _is_ a goof…" she muttered quietly, shrugging her shoulders and slipping out of the stall and into the street. "…He's got a cute butt," she laughed.

* * *

**And there you have it! Let me know what you think of my first attempt at this kind of thing. It'd be really appreciated.**


End file.
